The Ethics of a False Element in Charity Drives

[Lissa]

Tonight, while watching TV with Hubby, we saw an ad for a brand of yougurt which was encouraging women to mail in the lids to the company, who would make a donation to a breast cancer fund.

Seeing all of the women licking the lids in the commercial, I suddenly had a vision of an employee with plastic gloves opening envelopes. “They can’t really count those things,” I said to Hubby. “I mean, it doesn’t make sense. Think about paying employees to open germy envelopes and count those things by hand . . .”

“They probably don’t,” Hubby replied. He told me that he had heard at work about a similar promotion. He said a female co-worker had dilligently saved and mailed in the lids to the company, only to discover that the envelopes were quietly thrown away unopened. The company simply donated the million-or-so dollars that they had commited.

Something about this doesn’t sit right with me. If the same thing is going on with the company whose commercial I saw, I feel that they’re falsely giving the consumer the impression that the size of the donation is dependent on their purchases.

Giving to charity is laudable, and I don’t have a problem with companies bragging about it in order to boost sales, but if it’s true that the lids are worthless, it seems more like a sales gimmick than a charity drive. They’re tricking the consumer into buying a product because they think it will help women suffering from breast cancer.

What do you guys think?

[Svt4Him]

How did this lady discover that? Our school does soup lables, and we get a refund, so someone must have some way of doing it. Maybe it’s by weight, but they don’t just thow them away and pay us anything.

[Lissa]

*Originally posted by Svt4Him *
**How did this lady discover that? **

I honestly don’t know, nor do I know which campaign she was referring to specifically. It can’t be Yoplait’s campaign, because they have internet tracking on each lid donation.

Breast Cancer Action finds fault with Yoplait’s campaign, even though it does seem they do count the lids.

These campaigns are just some of the more visible samples of many such campaigns that exploit the disease to market products. Often, the little amount of money that they raise for breast cancer organizations is shameful, given the enormous public goodwill companies reap through these campaigns. In many cases, the money raised by these campaigns goes to organizations — such as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation — that are already phenomenally well funded and support programs that do little to advance the type of research that will bring us closer to truly preventing the disease.

This article says:

State regulators’ concerns centered on the wording of messages on Yoplait Yogurt containers that caused consumers to believe that a contribution of 50 cents per lid would be made for each unit of Yoplait purchased during the period. In fact, General Mills had agreed to a maximum donation to BCRF of $100,000 regardless of the number of lids returned. A disclaimer that revealed this limitation appeared on the underside of the lids, and was only visible to consumers after they had already purchased the product.

<snip>

In its investigation, Secretary Cox’ office found that approximately 9.4 million lids were returned nationwide by consumers during the course of the promotion. Had General Mills made a charitable contribution of 50 cents for each lid, as the Secretary of State asserts purchasers had been led to believe, the campaign would have resulted in a contribution of $4.7 million to BCRF, ($4.5 million more than actually received by the charity).

<snip>

“Corporate contributions are essential to the success and wellbeing of thousands of charitable organizations, and we commend corporate givers for the difference they make on behalf of many worthy causes. But when corporate donations are tied to sales promotions, and consumers make purchase decisions based upon an expectation of specific charitable support, it is essential that those promotional programs clearly identify how much will be contributed and how the calculations will be made. Simply put, we welcome and encourage corporate support for charity, but we must also make sure that Georgia consumers are not misled by sales promotions that feature a charitable component,” Secretary Cox added.

Since I don’t have the details about the campagn my husband’s co-worker described, the question becomes rhetorical. If you found that they did not count the lids, would it bother you as a consumer?